


Aperitivo

by HenryMercury



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Divorce, F/F, Past Narcissa Black Malfoy/Lucius Malfoy - Freeform, Smut, gin and tonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 17:15:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11833344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HenryMercury/pseuds/HenryMercury
Summary: Narcissa wondered whether this was how all Capricia Zabini's late husbands had felt: like they were doing something reckless, something that would probably end badly, but like there was no way it wouldn't be worth it regardless.





	Aperitivo

**Author's Note:**

> So, um. This happened because I couldn't get [this literal shitpost](http://accio-shitpost.tumblr.com/post/162003427784/narcissa-malfoy-later-went-on-to-divorce-lucius) out of my head. Don't ask me why this, of all the pairings I've written, has given rise to by far the most explicit fic in this whole account. Because I really don't know.

The west-facing sitting room was bright, but not warm. Narcissa's teacup was still full on the table in front of her chair. She'd been staring at the parchment in her hands for so long that none of the letters made words anymore, and none of the words had any meaning. It didn't matter; she knew what the document said. The solicitor had explained it thoroughly.

There at the bottom was Narcissa's own signature. One _s_ was taller than the other thanks to an anxious shake in her right hand, but it served its purpose nonetheless.

The divorce would mean she lost the Manor, despite the fact Lucius would never set foot in it again. Until he died in his cell, he was Lord of the Manor and could give instruction for the wards to be altered to exclude her. After a tearful, memorialising walk through every hallway of the house and every pathway in the garden, Narcissa had been surprised to find herself at peace with the loss.

It had to be easier anyway, she thought, to start over completely than to try building something new inside the shell of the old. The settlement she'd receive would be more than enough to purchase a townhouse in London, or a villa in the south of France, or to commission the building of an entirely new structure if she decided that was what she wanted.

She didn't know yet what it was that she wanted; she only knew what she didn't want.

She didn't want to be married to the man she'd trusted not to do anything that would hurt Draco, _begged_ not to do anything that could hurt Draco, anymore. She had asked one thing of Lucius and he had failed her, because it was more important that he not fail the Dark Lord than his own wife. The fact he had seemed to think it was ridiculous of her to feel that a promise he'd made her could be a priority over the Dark Lord had finalised it. From that moment on they had been fundamentally incompatible: Narcissa's first priority was always her family, and Lucius' had no longer been.

The first she heard of Capricia Zabini's intention to pay a visit was when the house elf popped into existence wringing her hands and informing Narcissa that there was a woman at the door she had not known was coming. Narcissa let the elf retreat to the kitchens as she was clearly desperate to do, not having catered for visitors, and Narcissa herself walked sedately to the front entrance.

Capricia waited on the other side of the doorframe looking much the same way she always did: taller than most men in her high-heeled boots; skin so dark her teeth and eyes shone; hair long, sleek and fluttering in a breeze that seemed only to exist for the purpose of causing it to do so. Her robes were silver and too thin for the weather. Her lips were the deep tannin red of wine. She was beautiful—but since everyone thought so it hardly meant anything that Narcissa did.

"You might have owled," she said, in lieu of a greeting.

"I might have," Capricia agreed. "But I think surprise visits are criminally underrated in our social circles. Can one woman not visit another without a binding contract stipulating the time and date?"

Her voice was deep and velvety, and the way she lingered on the word _contract_ spoke volumes. Narcissa realised, to her own horror, that she still held the divorce parchment in her hand.

"Come in, then," she sighed, and stepped aside to let Capricia through into the foyer. As she hadn't worn a coat, Narcissa didn't have to take it for her like some sort of servant.

"I've brought you a divorce present," Capricia said, pulling a very long, thin bottle of clear liquor out of her very small purse.

"Divorce present," Narcissa repeated faintly.

"Yes. You _are_ getting divorced, are you not?"

Narcissa had never approved of Capricia Zabini's manners. She had never even been sure she had any; she was simply beautiful enough to compensate for the lack of them. She certainly was not possessed of anything like subtlety. Honestly; showing up at another woman's home unannounced and commenting so _baldly_ on a divorce she could only have heard about through the grapevine. Narcissa remembered the first of Capricia's husbands as a particular show of unsubtlety, too; he'd been at least seventy and she'd been barely twenty-five. She'd already had a son—Blaise, Draco's classmate—by then. Seven husbands and yet not one of them had been the father.

"I don't believe it's your business," Narcissa answered.

Capricia was unfazed. "It is, because I've bought this extremely nice, extremely rare gin under the assumption that your marriage is being dissolved, and if you're actually _not_ getting divorced then I'm drinking it alone." She paused, thoughtful. "Well, not _alone_ , but with someone besides you."

Narcissa bristled, and then made the mistake of meeting Capricia's eyes. They were light compared to the rest of her colouring—grey-green like the leaves of English lavender in winter. They laughed, sparkled, though not in a cruel way—not _at_ her, but rather as if they wanted to let her in on the joke.

"It's very impolite to attach conditions to a gift after it's been offered," Narcissa pointed out, not meaning it quite so seriously. There was a time when playfulness came naturally to her, when she was a girl surrounded by sisters. Before they all grew up into such wholly incompatible people. Before Mother scorched an absent Andromeda off the family tapestry while Bella pointed and laughed, and Narcissa watched silently from the corner.

"I can be a very impolite woman," Capricia replied. She leaned a lot closer to Narcissa to say these words, like they were a secret and there was _anyone_ around to overhear them. "Let's drink this gin, hm? What say you?"

Narcissa realised that even though drinking in the daytime with Capricia Zabini was a terribly uncouth thing to do, she didn't want to say no. She nodded instead.

"Are _you_ still married?" she asked, leading the way to the same sitting room she'd been in earlier, the one that received the best sun mid-afternoon.

"Widowed again," Capricia replied smoothly. "Dear Edgardo had such a weak heart."

"And are you... engaged to anyone new?"

"No. This is a lovely room, Narcissa. The curtains remind me of my house in Paris."

Narcissa had ordered the fabric from Paris because she wanted them to remind her of being there, too. "Thank you," she said. "Please have a seat."

Capricia chose the armchair closest to Narcissa's favoured perch, and folded herself down into it with grace.

The poor, panicked house elf reappeared with two crystal glasses, a bowl of ice under a stasis charm, a bottle of tonic, a plate of lemon and cucumber slices, and a platter of fine cheeses. Narcissa knew that it meant she hadn't finished preparing any cooked food yet, but Capricia seemed pleased with the spread. She took a glass, tweezed a large piece of ice from the bowl, opted for cucumber as her garnish and went about mixing her own drink. 

"Would you like to make yours, or may I?" she asked.

"Go ahead," said Narcissa, who hadn't had gin and tonic in long enough to forget how she liked it. She'd had nothing but wine in years, she realised; no spirits. Wine meant it took a little longer to become truly inebriated, and that small obstacle had been best for everyone in the house.

Capricia made another drink, identical to the one she'd made herself, and handed it to Narcissa.

Narcissa took a long, deep sip. It was very strong. When she looked back up, Capricia's eyes were so intensely focused on her that she wondered whether the gin was messing with her mind already.

"Have you ever been with a woman?" Capricia asked. The question still seemed to fall from her mouth far too easily, but it wasn't as lighthearted as her inappropriate divorce comments.

Blindsided, Narcissa simply responded with the truth: "I've only ever been with Lucius."

"Merlin, really? What's that _like_? Not even knowing what else is out there?"

Narcissa's glass was empty, all of a sudden. She refilled it with gin and tonic, hands pouring roughly, then dropped a lemon slice in and started drinking again. It really _was_ good gin.

"I'm not divorcing him because the sex wasn't good enough," she said, bravely. It was... satisfying, saying things like that aloud. Satisfying seeing the pleased look on Capricia's face when she rose to the challenge of discussing them. "The last few years there _wasn't_ any sex, and I was glad for it."

"Why not sleep with someone else, then?"

"I was still _married_. And there was the war. That made it hard enough to eat, sleep or get up in the mornings. Hardly the time for an affair."

Capricia hummed. "Yes, the war. Nasty business. I was in Italy and glad to be there. I wish Blaise had agreed to come with me. Seeing what the last school year did to him, I wish I'd pushed it harder. Once the law tells them they're adults, though, there's so little we can do."

"So very little," Narcissa agreed.

Something in the bottom of her throat had begun to ache at the thought of Draco and everything she did not protect him from. She wished she had taken him away—forced him to flee to France and lived with it if she hated him for it. But he had been taller and broader and so much _angrier_ than her, and without Lucius' help Narcissa would never have been able to move him anywhere he didn't consent to go.

"Have you ever _thought about_ being with a woman, then, since you've not done it?" Capricia asked, pulling Narcissa out of her little spiral.

She watched Capricia's lips on the rim of her glass, leaving traces of red behind. She remembered a party at Parkinson Manor, when she'd watched the woman drink champagne and wondered whether it was pathetic to try and emulate the perfect tilt of her chin as she swallowed, the perfect caress of her hand as she put an empty glass down and caught a fresh one off a wandering drinks tray.

She remembered looking Capricia's newest husband—number four, at that time—up and down and trying to figure out _what it was about him_ that made him deserving. Despite the fact he had a reputable name, an extremely large fortune and was willing to overlook Capricia's notorious marital history, she just couldn't see it. He wasn't old, but he was shorter than his wife by several inches, soft around the middle, and had worn the most hideous brown robes to the last two events she'd seen him at. After too many glasses of wine, Narcissa had tried to picture Capricia and Husband Four together, tried to imagine him actually satisfying her, and couldn't. Narcissa herself would do better at it, she'd thought, tipsy as she'd been. Capricia Zabini had always seemed like the kind of woman who had to be satisfied one way or another.

"I'm not sure whether whatever thoughts I had counted," Narcissa confessed. "But it's possible that I have. Have you... have you been with women?"

Capricia smiled, a fond smile like she was remembering a wonderful holiday. "Only one," she answered. "And only once."

"And was it— what was it like?"

Narcissa felt her face going pink at the combination of alcohol and all these things she really shouldn't have been talking about. But why not? She was already going to be a divorcée, which in pureblood society probably made her no more respectable than the seven-times widowed Zabini. It was pureblood society that had led her to this point in her life anyway; if it didn't welcome her back after this then she didn't care to be welcomed.

"It was as individual an experience as sleeping with anyone is," Capricia answered. "There's no one experience of sleeping with a woman. Only the experience of a certain woman sleeping with a certain other. You'd have to try it to know how it feels for you—and even then there can be plenty of variation."

Narcissa understood this; there had been variation in sex with Lucius; they had been together for decades, after all. There had been happy days and angry days, lazy days and days so full of excitement or anxiety that their movements were frantic. There had been soft beds and hard tabletops and walls and the backs of doors, and once a grassy hillside in Dover. But the mechanics of it had always been the same: one of them would release him from his trousers, and Narcissa would rub him until he was fully hard. Then, from whatever position they were in, he would push inside her and thrust until he came with the squeaky little grunt he always made. She'd come too more often than not, muscles fluttering around his girth while the smooth pad of his thumb pressed against her clitoris; she'd made sure he knew where to find it on their wedding night and he'd never forgotten.

"At the very least," she said, "there must be some... common differences."

"Are you asking what sex is without a cock, Narcissa?" Capricia let the words— _that one_ in particular—drip off her tongue. She sounded so blasé and that made it _dirtier_ , somehow. "Because, my dear, if you are then I weep for you. Tell me, did Lucius never fuck you with his tongue? Did he never finger you with no motive but to see you writhe?"

Narcissa couldn't suppress her gasp. She also couldn't tell whether it was a symptom of the affront she felt, or of the heat that shimmered through her abdomen.

"Touched a nerve, have I?" Capricia laughed. Even her laugh had begun to sound incredibly inappropriate, like a sound that should only be made in private, in the presence of a lover.

"Do you often go around to people's houses and ask them what exactly their husbands do to them in bed?"

"No, I don't. You're a special case, Narcissa. Is that what you want to hear?"

Narcissa didn't know what she wanted to hear. She didn't know what it meant that Capricia had decided to have this conversation with her in particular.

"You know," Capricia continued when it was clear Narcissa couldn't answer, "I'm very aware of what it looks like when a person wants to fuck me. And I know what it looks like when a person knows they'll never fuck me. _And_ I know what it looks like when a person thinks it's too impossible to even understand that they want it. I've watched you for years, Narcissa. Watching me, just like that."

Narcissa froze, feeling caught even though she didn't believe she was guilty of this. She'd looked at Capricia, yes. Considered her beautiful. But so had _everyone_. Capricia was famous for her desirability. Narcissa wouldn't say she'd started wanting Capricia any earlier than ten minutes ago.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"To show you what it can be like. To show you what you were missing while you were _so very married_ for so very long."

Narcissa realised then that she had never really been propositioned. Not by someone she'd consider sleeping with, but who she wasn't sure wanted to sleep with her. Lucius had proposed marriage first, so that when he'd proposed sex it came as no surprise at all. Before that, there'd been no one she wanted more than him, and once they were husband and wife and so very proud of each other no one else had bothered to try.

Until now. Now, when that youthful Lucius who'd wanted to give her the world was gone, and with him the young Narcissa who'd believed he would or could.

She watched Capricia lick gin from her lips and thought about what she'd said earlier, with regard to tongue.  

"What will you do first, if I say yes?" she asked, pulse racing.

"I'll kiss you, Narcissa," Capricia said. Her eyes seemed to open up as she spoke the words, some of the seductive heat falling away and leaving an equally seductive earnestness behind. "I'll kiss you very slowly, because I want to feel every detail of you giving in to it."

Narcissa stood up, putting her glass down quite roughly on the table. She didn't remember making the executive decision to stand, but she knew why she'd done it nonetheless. She took a long step toward Capricia, who still lounged back in her armchair. Under her the crème upholstery looked like a throne.

Narcissa leant over her, rested a knee on the chair cushion in the gap between her legs. She met the eyes looking up at her, hunger sharpened with curiosity, daring Narcissa to continue down whatever path she'd found herself on, daring her to go as far down it as she could.   

Narcissa kissed Capricia fast, because if she'd tried to do it slowly it might have taken her forever. Capricia's lips looked lush but they felt even lusher under Narcissa's. She tasted like gin and cucumber, and she bit Narcissa's lip hard, in a way Narcissa didn't expect to like but did. The sharp pain and the ache it left behind reminded her of the pleasurable burn of being stretched open, made her want to charge on ahead and feel that again, see how Capricia could make it feel with her different methods.

Narcissa rucked up her robes and climbed onto the chair properly, knees on either side of Capricia's hips. She steadied herself with a hand on the other woman's shoulder, and threaded the other one through that sleek black hair. It felt coarser than it looked, and she didn't know why this pleased her so much. Something about getting to know what Capricia Zabini was like to touch and taste, not merely to look at, was more powerful than she'd anticipated.

Capricia broke the kiss to say, "Pull on it if you like." Narcissa clenched the hand in her hair. "Yes. _Yes_ there's the Narcissa I always wanted."

Narcissa had decided to kiss her again and didn't pause to ask what she meant, but she did wonder vaguely how long _always_ could possibly be. Emboldened, she pushed Capricia's fine silver robe up until her knee was revealed, then her thigh. Narcissa's hand was so very white on her dark skin, like the moon set against the night sky.

"No," Capricia whispered, and Narcissa retracted her hand. "I want to have you first. Take off your underwear."

Narcissa backed off the chair and did, removing her shoes and the outer layer of her robes as well.

"Come back here," Capricia instructed her, and Narcissa came as if reeled in by her beckoning hand. She repositioned herself over Capricia's lap, this time conscious that there was nothing between her nakedness and the other woman's bared thighs. She wanted to press herself down and move against them, but resisted.

Capricia kissed her again, first on the lips and then on the neck, sucking and biting so distractingly that Narcissa shivered and cried out softly when she felt knuckles brush her inner thigh.

"May I?" Capricia murmured against Narcissa's jugular.

"Please."

Narcissa expected Capricia to slip straight inside, but her fingertips took something of a scenic route around Narcissa's vulva, brushing through her pubic hair and tracing the edges of the labia so lightly Narcissa shuddered and gripped Capricia's shoulder tightly.

"Please," she said again, not really knowing what she meant by it. She didn't mean to ask for anything different than what she was being given. She just didn't want Capricia to stop.

The first finger felt good, but it wasn't enough. Capricia worked it into her until she begged for another, and that made it all the better when she finally added the second. _There_ was the slight burn Narcissa had wanted, the stretch as Capricia's nimble fingers scissored and curled. The third finger was the best, though. Narcissa felt full, and could feel in excruciating detail the slip of knuckles in and out of her body with the movements of Capricia's hand. Narcissa had used this many fingers on herself before, but Lucius would have had her on his cock after two if any.

"Can you take another?" Capricia asked. She was watching Narcissa intently, eyes tracing a bead of sweat as it ran down into the hollow of Narcissa's throat.

"Yes," said Narcissa, because she'd have taken anything given to her right then. "Yes, another."

The fourth finger was more pain than pleasure. The edge of Capricia's nail dug into Narcissa slightly as it squeezed its way in, and the little cry that issued from Narcissa's throat sounded wounded to her own ears, though somehow the sound of _that_ only served to intensify the heat rushing through her. Capricia held the four fingers in place for a long moment, Narcissa shuddering around them, before she withdrew her hand completely and Narcissa was empty. She hadn't come yet, and her pulse throbbed insistently between her legs.

Capricia brought her slick fingers to her mouth and licked the tip of one almost thoughtfully.

"Sit on the table there," she ordered Narcissa. "Spread your legs."

Narcissa pushed the empty gin glasses aside to clear space for herself. Capricia climbed out of her armchair at last, and settled before Narcissa with her knees in the plush, imported rug. Narcissa's own knees fell further open at the sight.

The coffee table was short, and Capricia was tall, so even kneeling she had to lean down in order to kiss Narcissa's thighs, lips following the path her hands had taken initially.

Unlike her hand's first, teasing exploration of the area, Capricia's mouth latched on to Narcissa's clitoris and sucked hard before Narcissa could even process it. The sound that left her was high and involuntary, a sound she didn't think she'd be able to make on purpose if she tried. She fisted both her hands in Capricia's hair and felt the other woman's groan against her skin.

"You implied," Narcissa said, stopping to draw a sharp breath in as she felt Capricia's teeth graze very lightly against her, "that you would use your tongue."

Capricia licked a long line from Narcissa's opening to her clit, pulled away and said, "I have been."

"You said—"

"What else would you like me to do with my tongue?"

Narcissa rolled her eyes. She wasn't going to beg, but she wanted it enough to ask. "Fuck me with it."

Capricia smiled, and licked her shining lips. "Well, why didn't you say so before?" she asked.

She used her fingers as well, and by the time Narcissa felt herself coiling tight like a spring, tense from curled toes to taut shoulders to white knuckles, Narcissa had stopped filtering the noises that came out of her mouth. Capricia liked it when she moaned, long and loud and broken-sounding, so Narcissa rewarded her vocally whenever she stroked into her just right.

"Will you come to Venice with me?" Capricia was asking, fingers still driving into Narcissa, driving her towards the edge.

"What?"

"Come away with me. To Venice."

Narcissa might have agreed to anything at that point. She was vaguely aware of that fact, but not enough that it bothered her. She would later wonder whether this was how Capricia convinced so many men to do exactly as she wished, but in the moment all she cared about was getting more of what Capricia was giving her.

"Sure. Yes, I'll come," she agreed.

"Good."

Capricia used her mouth again, and Narcissa came hard.

"Why are we going to Venice?" she asked when the aftershocks had passed, debating leaning back on the tabletop and resting, but deciding against it. The base of her spine already ached from sitting on the wooden surface.

"Because Venice is beautiful at this time of year. Because I own a house there. Because I want to take you wandering in art galleries and I want you to tell me about the wizarding architecture there, because I know you're knowledgeable about those things. I want us to hunt down the best coffee late in the mornings and drink Aperol Spritzes early in the afternoons. I want us to fuck so many times we lose count, and I feel like doing it in Venice."

Narcissa picked her underwear up off the floor and considered putting them back on before deciding that she'd summon a clean pair from her wardrobe, since she was in her own home. Her home for the minute, at least. She didn't know exactly where she was going to go once the Ministry registered the divorce.

Venice seemed as good a place as any.

She reached out for Capricia, because after _that_ orgasm she needed to return the favour. She was also curious to see what she could do with her own hands and mouth, curious to know what it was like to fuck someone, to give the sort of pleasure she was accustomed to receiving.

"Not now," Capricia waved Narcissa's attentions away, but fixed her with a look that assured her she didn't intend to wait very long before she let Narcissa reciprocate. "Now, you pack a bag."

Narcissa had never heard anyone make _packing a bag_ sound like a sexual act before, but there was certainly a first time for everything.

It wasn't what she'd planned to do, but she did it anyway, putting her bathing suit, sunglasses and a couple of sundresses she'd not worn in years—not known she even still possessed—into the suitcase along with her everyday robes. Capricia watched her as she did, sipping a fresh gin.

Narcissa wondered idly whether this was how all Capricia's late husbands had felt: like they were doing something reckless, something that would probably end badly, but like there was no way it wouldn't be worth it regardless. _Fuck it_ , she thought. She could allow herself a little recklessness after surviving a war, surviving each of Lucius' mistakes. It was time to make better mistakes, and it was time to make them for herself.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me on [tumblr](http://henrymercury.tumblr.com/).


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